Gaming Month Ahead – July 2013

Ah, July. Summers begun and publishers fear the sun and the warmth it brings. It doesn’t look quite as back as last year when there was only really Secret World and Mass Effect 3’s extended ending to look forward to. This year is a bit of an eclectic mix. Those handful of Wii U owners out there can look forward to more plumbing action as Mario’s other half has another solo adventure. New Super Luigi U is out towards the end of the month alongside Pikmin 3 on the Wii U too.Civilization 5 on PC gets another expansion. Brave New World focuses on culture and diplomacy, potentially adding ltos of replayability and depth to an already pretty deep game.
Of course most important to me would be Dynasty Warriors 8! With the ROTK literature handled so well by Dynasty Warriors 7, sticking to the script would have been a redundant decision. So instead, Koei have opted for a more free-form story mode while adding the usual extra characters and battle strategies. It’s going to be hard to better DW7, which itself came closest to beating the series best, Dynasty Warriors 3 – but I’m willing to give it a chance 🙂
And that’s sort of it. I can’t help but feel that the start of summer deserved some more portable games. The US gets Shin Megami Tensei IV on 3DS and Dragon’s Crown on Vita, but neither handheld much this month (Apart from another obligatory Mario game on 3DS)
As a final note, I’ve added this month’s PSPlus schedule to the end of the release list. Enjoy!